Anja's Smile
by Motsie of Atlantis
Summary: Owen Granger has been at odds with Henrietta Lange from day one. He has a score to settle with her, but is willing to wait his time until he can take her down. But how will this payback play out in the lives of the OSP team. Will they have to suffer for Hetty's sins? A One Shot written for #GrangerAppreciationWeek for NCIS:LA Magazine.


**A/N.** This is a one shot written for #GrangerAppreciationWeek on the NCIS:LA Magazine's website.  
**Disclaimer:** Thanks to Donald P. Bellisario, and Shane Brennan, for teaching me to play with the fantastic characters and sets that they have ceated. Since I don't own them, they made me promise that I return them by their curfew. Although they might be slightly (?) battered and bruised, I did send them home.

**Anja's Smile**

Every year, except the one when he was hospitalized, Owen Granger makes a quick trip to Germany. He flies into Berlin from wherever he is stationed at the moment on June 17th and returns three days later. While in the German capitol, he buys a small floral arrangement of black-eyed susans, because those are the flowers Anja loved the most. He goes to the Evangelischer Friedhof Böhmischer Gottesacker (Bohemian Evangelical Converts Cemetery) just off the Karl-Marx-Platz and finds his way to the tiny grave site, lovingly placing the flowers there. Resting his hand on her tombstone, he closes his eyes and says a silent prayer for her and all the others who suffered the same fate as she did. Walking across the street to the Cafe Vux, he orders two servings of Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte (Black Forest cake) with its decadent Bavarian chocolate, the very last thing that the two of them ate together, and slowly eats one as he lets his mind wonder about what might have been. Leaving the other serving untouched, he rises, pays for the food, and strides out of the cafe, the look of determination settling over his face again for another year.

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Owen Granger was one of the brightest and the best, at least that is what he was told, time and time again. When he was 22 he had graduated from Southern Illinois University with a double Bachelor's degree in Political Science and modern European History, also auditing several courses in at Washington University in St. Louis. Duke University granted him a scholarship to do graduate work, and he received his Masters only a year later. The CIA placed him on their radar and he passed his FLETC training at Glynco, Ga. in June of 1979.

**1980**

His first operation for the CIA was a two week protection duty stint. He was teamed with seven other agents in three person teams that were on for eight hours every twenty-four. They were guarding a material witness that had been called to testify in the case of a major defense department contractor who was providing shoddy electrical components to Navy contractors. Nothing became of it, and he was then sent to NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, to serve as part of the security squad for the various US officials that had gathered for the annual meeting. There were a few security alerts, but they all proved groundless.

He was surprised when he was ordered to stay in Brussels, and await the arrival of a different agent, one with whom he would be teamed for a new operation. Two days later he was introduced to a tiny woman, Hetty Lange, who would be his handler.

"How do you want to be addressed, Ma'am, Miss or Mrs.", he asked, after seeing no wedding ring on her left hand.

"For you I am Fraulein Regina Krumm, secretary for Klaus Schmidt, shipping department foreman of Eckhart Manufacturing in West Germany.

"Jawohl, Fraulein Krumm." he said.

"And you are Ralph Hess. a West Berlin truck driver, picking up materials in East Berlin every other day and driving it West. You will be staying the night in a Gasthaus (hotel) while your truck is loaded. At some point you will receive a list of East German spies that you will transport back across the border at the Dreilinden crossing (Checkpoint Bravo) with your regular load of materials."

"Do you have any idea on how long this operation will take". Granger asked.

"It will end when you have completed the mission, or you have been killed." she said, looking at him deliberately.

Somehow, Owen Granger realized that he had graduated to working in the big leagues.

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The night of his third trip, there were very few customers enjoying the evening meal at the hotel. Granger noticed that there was a new waitress, a blond girl in her early twenties, dressed in the traditional uniform of black skirt, white blouse with puffy three-quarter sleeves, and a black vest that came up to just under her breasts and drew attention to them. Her long blond hair was braided and coiled around the crown of her head. She took his order, brought him his food, and reappeared at his table as he was finishing his food

"Mein Herr, was the meal and service satisfactory?' she asked.

"Sehr gut danke," [Very good, thank you] he said, "Fraulein... I'm sorry, I don't know your name."

"She looked at him and laughed. "You can call me Anja."

Granger had a quizzical look on his face as he asked, "Anja..., is that short for Angelene?"

"It could be, if you want it to be." she said. "Actually it is a Russian name, and means gracious, or merciful."

"Well, it truly fits a beautiful Fraulein like you."

"Danke, Mein Herr. And you, what is your name?" she asked.

"Me, I am Ralph Hess, I drive a truck, empty coming into the Eastern Zone, and when it is loaded, I drive it back into the Western Zone, for Eckhart Manufacturing."

"Of course you are. But everyone in East Berlin knows that everybody else is something different than they claim, just like they themselves are," she said with a lilt to her voice, as she left him to continue working.

Granger really worried about what she said. He felt like he was going to be stopped and arrested as a spy when he tried to cross the border at Checkpoint Bravo, but his fears were proved groundless. It seems like Anja was just making a joke about all the agents, spies and counterspies that were running around in the city.

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The next time he was there Anja was again his waitress. She seemed that she wanted to wait on him alone, and leave the other customers to the other waitresses. Anja continued to seek him out each and every time he stayed and ate there. Then, after a month, he made his big move.

"Anja, when do you get off work tonight? Perhaps we could have a drink together and maybe I could walk you home?" he asked her.

"I would like that. I get off at 9:00 PM. I will meet you here at the door." was her answer.

Granger was waiting there for her that evening, ten minutes early, just in case she might want to change her mind and slip out without him. She looked at him with such a smile on her face that he knew that possibility would have never happened. She would always keep her word, with him.

Anja grabbed her light tan jacket on the way out. Owen took her jacket in his hands, and held it for her as she slipped into it. Ducking her head, she placed her bag on the far side of her body. Then she grabbed his hand and continued to hold it as they walked the three blocks over to the tavern.

"You know my name is not really Anja?" the smile that shone so brightly on her face was replaced by such a serious look. "My real name is Karolin Ines Baumann. Remember how I told you the very first time we met that everyone in East Berlin is something different than they claim?"

Owen looked at her, desperately wanting to bring that beautiful smile back to her face. "Of course, I do." he told her. "I remember everything of that night, especially your beautiful smile. You wanted to be Anja then, and you will always be Anja for me, no matter who or what you really are."

When she heard those words, the smile did not just return to her face, Granger would swear that her face just glowed and lit up the room, whenever he played the events of that night back in his mind. The two of them finished their beers, and walked out. Granger again took her hand as they walked over to her apartment building. He finally let her hand go as she looked for her keys in her bag, placing one hand gently on each side of her head, and placed a gentle kiss on her forehead.

She looked up at him in amazement, and watched as he turned around and walked away. Granger half closed his eyes as his steps carried him further and further from her, thinking how her smile could convey so much, without a single word being spoken.

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When Owen Granger got back to West Berlin, he reported to Hetty that he had contacted Anja or she had contacted him outside of the hotel. He was wondering if this was the contact who was to pass off the information for which he was waiting. Hetty told him that she didn't think so, but that Granger should continue to see Anja, because the source of the information might be using her to pass it along to the West. He was happy that he would get to spend more time with the East German girl and her fabulous smile.

Hetty, on the other hand, was becoming concerned about this. Was this girl who and what she said she was, or could she be an East German counter spy? The tiny lady knew that the list of East German and Soviet operatives was supposed to be coming from Bernstrom Kohl, a member of the Staatssicherheit, the East German State Secret Police. The rumor was that he got into some hot water by creatively adding some short cuts to an operation he was ordered to do for his Soviet overlords. His STASI superiors had backed him up, that is why he had not been shipped off to Siberia. Maybe Kohl was passing it off through Anja, although Hetty found it hard to believe that he would let a list like this out of his sight until he had used it to broker the deal he desired. Hetty would have to find out more about this Anja.

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Granger went back to his routine, drive an empty truck to East Berlin, have his evening meal at the hotel, spend time talking with Anja at the tavern, walk her home, go back to his hotel to sleep, and then drive the filled truck back into the Western Zone. After they had done this for almost a month, one night Anja's smile disappeared from her face and a very serious look replaced it at the tavern. She moved closer to him and started whispering in his ear, almost like a lover whispering sweet nothings.

"Ralph, I think I can trust you. There is something I need to ask you, and I hope you don't think anything less of me because of it."

He turned toward her and whispered his answer in her ear "Ask me whatever you want, Anja, if I can do it for you it will be done."

She started picking at the sleeve of her coat as she told him, "My father is pressuring me to leave Berlin and go back our home near Torgelow. I don't want to go back there and live under his domination again. I came here to get away from him, but it still has not worked. I would like to defect. Is there any way that you could hide me in your truck as you go back to West Berlin? Any way at all? I need to live a life that is free."

"Anja, they check my truck completely each and every time that I go back. I have seen them open up boxes that they felt could be big enough to hide a person. There is no way that I could smuggle you across the border in my truck. But there might be another way. I will see if I can find someone in the Western Zone that can make you a set of false papers just to get across the border. I don't know how much it will cost, but I will try to do that for you."

The beacon smile returned to Anja's face as she leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.

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When Granger returned to West Berlin he asked for another meeting with Hetty.

"Anja wants to defect," he told his CIA handler. "I know that I can't smuggle her in the truck, but I also know that the CIA can have a set of papers made for her to cross the border. I want you to get those papers. I want her to be able to live a free life."

"That may be a possibility," Hetty told him. Let me see what I can do. It might take a week or two, and as long as the information has not been passed on to you by then, we will see what we can do."

"Thank you. I guess that's all I can ask." Granger said as he left her.

He didn't see Hetty shake her head, knowing that it probably would not happen. She knew that the young woman that Granger was looking to smuggle out of the Eastern Zone was not named Anja. Nor was she named Karolin Baumann. Her true name was Annaleisa Kohl, the daughter of the East German spy. The CIA agent was trying to get her father to defect, and she knew if the daughter did it first there would be no possibility of the father's successful escape. They would watch him like a hawk and he would have no chance to broker the information he had for his freedom.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Granger," Hetty said aloud to absolutely no one. "That is something that is just not possible."

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The next time Granger saw Anja, his smile was just about as big as hers usually was. He waited until they were at the tavern later that evening. They again sat so close together that they only could hear each other's whispered words.

"I think that I have found someone who can get you a set of papers that will allow you to cross the border" he told her.

"That's wonderful. I didn't expect you to be able to do it this soon."

"It might take a couple of weeks, but I'm sure that it won't seem that long for you when you are free."

"I don't know why I did it, but I bought you a little present thinking this might happen."

"A present, what is it?"

"Open it up and see," she said. as she pushed a small box over to his hand.

Opening the box, he found a miniature ceramic black bear that was seated on his back two paws with one front paw stretched out, obviously reaching for something. And there, behind another little scrap of tissue paper, was the object of his reach, a little ceramic bee hive obviously filled with honey for the bear, since there were three fat bees painted on it. Granger looked at Anja with a puzzled look on his face.

Anja's smile got even bigger as she laughed and told him, "This will always remind you of Berlin, because the symbol of the city is the bear, and here you tried to pull me away from everything and consume my sweetness."

Granger laughed aloud after he heard her explanation, and gave her another kiss on the cheek.

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Three weeks later it was all set. Hetty was going to bring Anja's papers and meet Granger at the Dreilinden crossing (Checkpoint Bravo) one of the few checkpoints open to Germans and non-Germans alike. Granger could see Anja on the other side of the crossing, waiting for him. But where was Hetty? She should have been here by now. What could be keeping her?

Then an icy fear came over Granger. Members of the 20th Army Guards approached Anja and were talking with her, one of the guards holding her arm. All of a sudden she bolted toward him, leaving her coat in the guard's hand.

That border guard then ordered her, "Stop! Border sentry! Hands up!" as the rest of them leveled their guns at her.

A second one yelled at her, "Stop, stand still, or I will shoot!" as each one released their safeties and chambered a shell. She kept on running as Granger screamed, "Anja, stop." as he watched the whole scene play out before him in slow motion.

Shots rang out. Anja finally stopped. She lay crumpled on the ground in the dead zone. There was no smile on her face.

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He stumbled his way back to the transportation office and found Hetty sitting there, working as if nothing at all happened. Granger screamed at her, his voice filled with the pain that was filling his heart. "Where the hell were you?"

"Right here, Mr Granger." she calmly replied.

"You were supposed to bring Anja's papers to the checkpoint. Why didn't you show up?"

"I was ordered not to."

"Who, who gave those orders?"

"I do not know, Mr. Granger."

"She's dead. Are you happy about that?"

"I'm sorry, Mr. Granger. I was only following the rules."

Granger had nothing more to say, he was too overcome with grief. Had he loved Anja? He knew it was way too early in their relationship to even consider a question like that, but certainly her smile had captivated his heart. He couldn't claim that it was love that was tearing him apart, but he knew that it could have easily evolved into love. One thing for which he would never forgive Hetty, was taking the beautiful smile off the face of Anja. Hetty said she was just going by the rules – Well, someday he would use those rules to break her.

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After three days, Granger went over into East Berlin and found that no one had claimed Anja's body. He made all the arrangements necessary for a funeral in the small chapel on the Bohemian Evangelical Converts Cemetery grounds, and a small burial plot in that cemetery, paying the required fees that she could remain there undisturbed for the next 20 years. After he attended the funeral service and interment, he went back to West Berlin. He found a message waiting for him there, that because of what he had done about Anja's funeral, the operation was cancelled and he was to return home.

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Granger was debriefed when he returned to Washington DC. They decided to give him two weeks off to get his head screwed on straight after his psych eval. He decided to go out to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, to unwind. His parents took him there when he was a kid, vacationing in a rented cabin and using it as a base for hiking, hunting, and fishing. Maybe, while he was there now, he could again find a small piece of that simple life he knew as a child. Two days before he was supposed to return to Washington, he was hiking through a small grove of massive blue spruce. Lying on the ground off the side, he found a small piece of log that had its center partially rotted out. He cleaned it up and decided that it looked like a small, open cave. He took it home and looked for the box with the little bear that Anja had given him. He placed the bear right in the center of that opened up area in the log, but for some reason, it just didn't look right there. Granger kept moving the little bear around until he felt he had the perfect spot on the log for it and glued it down. Then he glued the little bee hive directly above the bear. When he arrived home, he placed it in the center of the fireplace mantle, where it stood out prominently. Now every time he looked at it, he remembered Anja's smile.

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Throughout the years, Granger added additional little animals that he picked up to the log. Each of the different animals held a special meaning for him. He found a small green tree snake to mark the time that he spent in Nicaragua, tramping around in the jungle with the spiders and snakes. When Granger attended sniper school with Donald Blye at Camp Pendleton, he picked up a pair of tiny raccoons with the masks over their eyes, because he felt it symbolized the stealth that they needed to employ in their craft. Each new addition was mounted on his log, a visual record of his life and service.

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**1989**

Throughout the years, Bernstrom Kohl tried to work his way out of the spy game. He had little to live for after he found out that his daughter had been killed by CIA agents. No longer did he offer the list of East German and Soviet agents to them. Instead, he traded the book to an arms dealer, Kurt Renner, to get him safely into the West. He then spent his time trying to find out who was responsible for Annaleisa's death.

After years of piecing the puzzle parts together, he came up with the name of Regina Krumm, a tiny CIA operative who was active in Berlin about ten years prior. Further investigation showed that she was now using the name Henrietta Lange. Since he didn't know which of her names were real, he decided to call her Herta the Gartenzwerg [garden gnome]. He sought her out to kill her, but on November 22, 1989 in San Francisco, the vicious pixie shot Kohl twice, causing him to have a massive stroke and leaving him in a wheelchair, only partially lucid. She arranged to place him in a nursing home, where she masquerades as his wife, visiting periodically to probe him for information and continuing to keep him under her thumb. He just sat there and continued to hate her for what she had done to him and his daughter.

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**2014**

Granger always had a special spot in his heart for Kensi Blye. Her father, Donald, was one of his closest friends, something very rare when you are in the spy game. Owen had promised Donald that if anything happened to him, he would watch out for Kensi.

That was one of the reasons why, when Hetty assigned her to be the sniper to try to kill the White Ghost, he went along with her to have her back. Granger didn't know how the operation went wrong. Kensi ended up being captured by the Taliban, Callen, Sam, Sabatino, him and the rest of the party tracking her ended up on a hilltop, out of ammunition and all hope of living. And then, all of a sudden, everything changed.

No one knows how he did it. Instead of riding in on a white horse to save her, and the rest of them, Kensi's partner Marty Deeks came flying in on a black helicopter, offering to trade the life of a blind Iman for the traitor and the sniper. The Taliban members agreed to the exchange, and soon all of them were boarding the helicopter to fly back to safety. To keep his word to Kensi's dad, Granger called in a drone strike on the Taliban group once they had cleared the area. To offer Kensi some little bit of comfort when he found out that the White Ghost was not a terrorist traitor, but her former fiancé and an ex-CIA operative that the Company felt knew too much, Granger held off the CIA long enough for Jack to get away.

But Granger had no idea what he would do with Deeks. This man made a joke about everything and tried to laugh his way through life. Hetty had told him that she had given the Detective the papers for him to become a NCIS agent, but he refused to fill them out and sign them. Did the young man really know what he wanted in life, beyond having a sexual relationship with Kensi?

He had been with Hetty in her office one night after everyone else except Deeks and Kensi had left. There were no walls to stop them from hearing the banter that was coming from the bullpen area. Both Granger and Hetty saw Deeks take the knife Kensi had given him before she went to Afghanistan, snapped it back into its sheath, and push it across the table to her, and then look at her and say, "Contrary to hundreds of years of scientific evidence, I believe that raccoons do mate for life."

Granger managed to control his anger in Hetty's presence. He felt that the end was coming soon for the little ninja. What had riled him up was the thought of the young man using the knife that Granger recognized as once belong to Donald Blye. What in all the world made him think that he even deserved to touch it? For that matter, what in all the world made him think that he deserved to touch Kensi? And that remark about raccoons. It almost made him want to rush home and take one of those porcelain raccoons out of his collection and grind it to powder. Mate for life? The shaggy haired fool and his friend's daughter? Over his dead body.

As a promise to himself, he spoke the words out loud, "The beginning of the end."

Hetty tried to correct him by saying, "The end of the beginning,"

Granger was sure that she was thinking of something entirely different. He knew that her end was coming fast and soon he would no longer have to deal with her, or her team as she had set it up.

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With smug satisfaction, Owen Granger found that he was entirely correct. Henrietta Lange had been recalled to Washington, DC, there to answer for her actions and the actions of her team in the White Ghost incident. He was the one chosen to come in as the Acting Operations Manager of the Office of Special Projects and clean up the mess she had left. He promised himself that it would be restructured into what he felt would be a standard NCIS program. Granger felt Hetty let everyone get away with too much. She even allowed the junior agent and detectove to pursue their love life when she had put a stop to his. That was going to change. His word would be law and the team would listen.

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Their first case together showed the team's reluctance to work the way he wanted.

Eric came out of ops and looked over the edge of the balcony. Instead of his usual whistle, all they heard was him saying, "Ahhh, guys, could you come up? We caught a case."

Deeks started to open his mouth, but Callen shook his head as they got up from their desks.

"Eric, why didn't you whistle?" Kensi asked as she walked through the sliding doors.

Eric directed her with his eyes over to the corner, where she saw Owen Granger standing in the shadows. Just seeing him there gave everyone a bad feeling about this coming operation.

Nell and Eric led the briefing, like they always had done. A picture of a sprawled out body in uniform appeared on the plasma. "This is Lieutenant Commander Steven Hill, an engineering officer, formerly assigned to the nuclear sub USS Nebraska, one of the newer Virginia class subs. He has been missing for the past month" Eric informed them.

"So, we're now supposed to investigate a suicide," Sam asked. 'Seems to me that there are other more important crimes that we could be working on." as he looked at Granger with a scowl on his face.

"I would be careful how far you question my choice of operations and my judgment in assigning teams to work the cases I choose. Please remember, Agent Hanna, and this goes for all of you as well, those who ignore the past are destined to repeat it. And you no longer have your little fairy godmother flitting around here to protect you and make things right at the end of the day. You are all on notice. We are now playing everything 'by the book', do I make myself perfectly clear?" was Granger's warning reply.

Callen answered for the whole team, "Yes, sir, **ACTING** Operations Manager, sir." his voice filled with sarcasm. Then he became all businesslike as he turned toward the team and asked, "Eric, Nell, what do we have to go on so far?"

They traced the death back to some drug dealers that wanted a shipbuilder to design and build a submarine. Granger knew that Talia Del Campo, a DEA agent who usually worked alone, was tracking the Brotherhood, a drug cartel that moved half of the meth on the West Coast. She had worked with the team, being paired with Deeks, according to the reports, while Kensi was in Afghanistan. If the Brotherhood would form an alliance with the group that stole the submarine, billions of dollars' worth of cocaine from Colombia would soon show up on the Los Angeles streets. So Granger decided to add Talia to the team.

Talia had told Deeks how her last partner left the DEA because she chose work over him. That was why she worked alone. But as she left, she called him "Partner". When she appeared this time at the boat shed, Talia greeted Deeks with "What's shaking, partner?" and a hug. She also termed it "hooking up" to describe how she had previously worked with Deeks. Kensi's jealousy could not have made itself known more if she had a flashing neon sign pointing towards her. Both women made it a contest, who could draw the most attention to their bust. They almost had a down and dirty catfight between them. Unfortunately for the Detective, each of the two beautiful women emphasized every point that she wanted to make by punching him, in the arm, in the chest, whatever part of his body became available to her. There was nothing he could do or say to defend himself.

Now there was trouble in paradise between the two agents that Hetty appeared to put together for more than just a work relationship. Granger's smile was large enough to match the one he remembered on Anja's face, unfortunately, it conveyed none of the love hers did.


End file.
